Jig for Stiles and Rails for 5 piece doors

[rscrawford]

I've been thinking about making an adjustable jig for cutting rails and stiles for doors, so yesterday I made up a prototype jig out of MDF and 3 bessey toggle clamps. This will only work with one length of rail, but any length of stile. I plan to modify it to be adjustable, and make it out of something more durable (aluminum) and then have it index onto my aluminum plenum so I can easily place it on the table and have it positioned correctly.

I made some doors with straight rails last night, but this morning I remade some of the rails with cathedral curves and took a video of the cuts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ioh3rRRbYwA

I used rail and stile cutters made by Armana

The design in Aspire or V-carve is very simple, just 3 vectors. For the tenon cuts on the ends of the rails, you just need a lead in and lead out because the cutter has undercuts.

[Bishop01]

rscrawford,

Thanks for sharing, seems like a great way to make some complex rails and stiles. What did you do to set up your router bits to account for the height offset between the stick and the cope cuts?

[rscrawford]

The two cutters are perfectly matched. I just zero'd both cutters off the spoilboard, and then chose the cut height and used the same height for both cutters.

[CraigW]

Great minds think alike!
Here is the rail and stile jig I made last year. Pretty close.
A bit tricky on the initial setup, but after that I can blast through cuts as quick as I can clamp the boards down.

And my fingers are nowhere near those big cutters!

[rscrawford]

That's a pretty similar jig!

Looks like you are using the typical bearing cutter. I'd be too afraid to use one, in case my blank wasn't the exact width. I like cutters without bearings - I leave my blanks oversized and the cutters trim the piece to size as it cuts the tenons on the ends of the rails, and trims the width to size as it cuts the sticks.

[gordread]

That's a pretty cool setup.

[Sk8nmike]

Good work on the jigs, but in the time it takes to set up and carve I could complete several pieces on a table router.

[rscrawford]

I can cut the rails in about 50 seconds, and the stiles in about 20 seconds. You are right, these are not too difficult to make on a router table. The problem with a router table is the set-up. You need to change bits for the two different cuts on the rails (the stick cut and the cope cut on the ends), and you need to adjust the heights. That takes longer than a simple tool change on the CNC, and cutting the ends of the rails on a router table without a sled is rather dangerous for your fingers!

The main advantage is when your rails have cathedral curves in them. That isn't as easy on a simple router table - you'd need to bandsaw the curve, sand it smooth (or use a template), then use the router table. Then you need to match the panel to the curve. Very simple with a CNC - if you watch that video, it shows the whole cathedral curve and stick cut being cut in a single pass! You could do the same with a shaper, if you had a template on a sled for each rail, but it is not as easy as with the CNC.

[john teichman]

Has anyone tried to cut mitered door frames with any luck i have made some but too much sanding the miters for me i try 45 deg. with clean up cut still see open joint when i put on picture frame vise to make square.

[ssflyer]

John,

If you take a look at the image, you can see how I did a face frame for a lithophane box - basically a half-lap joint with 45 degrees for the cutout. They fit perfectly...

(Ignore the squarish pieces on the right )